Breakers. After Cornelius died, Alice never remarried and continued to live in the mansion and in Newport. However, the house was never opened again to friends, and the only functions that are known to have happened there were the funerals of her two sons. Subsequently, it was just Alice and the 37 servants needed to run the mansion. As with the rest of the residences on Fifth Avenue, the mansion at 1 West 57th Street began to be encroached on by commercial skyscrapers, but Alice remained. Sale and demolition The trust fund that Cornelius had left his wife produced a yearly income of $250,000, which was just enough to maintain both houses. Alice held on as long as she could, but she was forced to sell it in 1926. She had no hope for the house's preservation because she knew that developers, Braisted Realty Corporation (led by real estate developer Frederick Brown), had paid a hefty $7,000,000 for the land, and not for the house that stood on it. A week before the wrecking ball was scheduled to demolish the 43-year-old home, Mrs. Vanderbilt arranged to have it opened to the public for fifty cents admission, which would be donated to charity. Before selling it, she donated as many elements from the interiors as she could, including the baronial Augustus Saint-Gaudens-designed fireplace and the Moorish ceiling piece from the smoking room. She also donated the 10-foot-tall metal front entryway gates. Once the mansion was demolished, it was replaced by the Bergdorf Goodman department store. After selling the home for $7,000,000, she bought the George J. Gould House for $800,000. See also List of Gilded Age mansions References Further reading Essay with pictures of the first and second house on 57th Street. External links 57th Street (Manhattan) Châteauesque architecture in the United States Demolished buildings and structures in Manhattan Fifth Avenue Houses completed in 1883 Houses in Manhattan Midtown Manhattan Vanderbilt family residences Gilded Age mansions